2014-2019 Corvette C7 AWE Touring Edition Axle-Back Exhaust w/ Diamond Black Tips Review and Install
Jake: Hey, everyone. Jake here for American Muscle, and in this video we're taking a look at the AWE Touring Edition Axle-Back Exhaust, with the Diamond Black Tips, fitting 2014 to 2019 C7 Corvettes. Excellent build quality, great sound, and everyday usability. These are the hallmarks of all of AWE's Touring Edition axle-backs, and this one is, of course, no exception.
This is a super high-quality system, that unlocks some of that trademark Corvette sound, while being acceptable for daily driver or road trip duties. Accordingly, we're gonna give this one a three out of five on our loudness meter. This is definitely an increase in volume over stock, but it's not something that's gonna anger your neighbors or rattle the windows. Now, making the LT1 engines sound good is pretty simple, but making it both sound good and be livable day-to-day, especially in a dedicated sports car, is a little bit more tricky. But the exhaust experts at AWE make it easy for you. They put in all the background engineering work,
so that you don't have to mess around. And their Touring Edition is about the best balance you're gonna find on the market. Of the two different flavors offered for the C7, the Touring errs a bit more on the tame side. Although, as you heard from the clips at the start of the video, tame is
really a bit of an understatement. This is still really gonna open up the LT1 in comparison to your stock exhaust system. It's gonna let that engine breathe and bark the way that it should have from the factory, you know, if you ask me. Matter of fact, I think this system should come as standard or a factory option on all C7s, but unfortunately, it's a little too late for that. Thankfully,
though, you've got it right here. Still, this is gonna provide you a really pleasant, deep tone, that will just make your Corvette sound absolutely fantastic. It sounds really smooth overall, but you can still hear some nuances of the engine, especially at idle, and down low in the revs. Frankly, it just makes it sound like a race car. And if you can get a little bit of that C7R race car flavor on the street, why not? Now, of course, more volume outside is gonna mean more volume inside of the cabin as well. You're certainly gonna be aware of what's going on under the hood, but that's just part of the fun of these cars anyway. Just cruising around, it is apparent that you have an exhaust, but it's not all that much louder volume-wise than stock.
When you really get on it though, that's when you're truly gonna notice the difference. However, AWE has included their patented 180 technology here in the mufflers. Now, inside, there are specifically-designed ports and chambers that are going to allow exhaust gas pulses to move through and realign exactly 180 degrees out of phase with other frequencies. And what that's gonna do is it's going to cancel out drone, and give you the sound you're after, without a literal headache. It's a clever trick that addresses the exact cause of drone,
leaving you with a great sound and a slick piece of engineering. Now, this also means that these mufflers are not baffled. So, they're essentially just straight-through units. So, what that's gonna do is it's going to allow for better exhaust flow through the system, and that can mean more power. Now, while we're not dyno testing this one, AWE does claim an increase, and you might just notice a difference, purely because you're gonna be burying the throttle more often, just to hear the noise. This system also includes a pair of AWE's AFM valve simulators. So, what these are gonna do is they're going to
ensure that your car operates just like factory. The brackets will attach to the valve actuators from the stock exhaust, and essentially, they're gonna fool the ECU into thinking that the valves themselves are still intact and working. So you're not gonna get a check engine light, and your car's not gonna throw any weird codes or behave strangely. The whole system is, of course, finished off with these sweet 4.5-inch-diameter diamond black tips as well. You get four,
so you keep that classic C7 look, and this is just a little extra something to add to the appearance of your Vette. Now, if you've got something like a Grand Sport, like we have here, or you've got something that you're just blacking out entirely, these are gonna make a really nice difference too. Construction is also a highlight, as is the case with all of AWE's systems. You get 3-inch-diameter T304L stainless steel tubing, with 0.65-inch thick sidewalls all the way back. Now, this is gonna be a full bolt-on system, so everything is gonna slide right in place of your factory setup. Those tips, again, are 4.5 inches in diameter, and they feature that awesome diamond black finish over
a double-wall, slash-cut construction. Now, this system is also available with a chrome tip option, if you wanna go that route instead, and we do have that available on our site. Pricing comes in at about $1,700, and that does position this towards the more expensive end of the category. This is certainly a premium option, given that construction and the engineering that's baked in here. Yes, you're gonna be paying quite a handsome sum of money, but you're getting a lot here as well, and you want a really solid setup that's not going to annoy you, and make your car more pleasant to drive, you gotta be willing to shell out for it.
Installation will get a 2 out of 3 on our difficulty meter, and the job should take you around two hours to complete. Now, this isn't going to require you to do any permanent modifications to your car or the system itself, so this is gonna be, again, a bolt-on system, and it comes with everything you need to get it installed on your Vette. However, if you're familiar with doing exhausts on these cars, it is, of course, going to require a bit of disassembly, so you're gonna need to allot some extra time to get that completed. With that, though, let's head on out to the shop, and we'll walk you through the process. Man: For this install, you need a 3/8 impact and ratchet, extension, a 15, 13, 11, 10, 7, T25 and T15 socket, a trim panel removal tool, an 8-millimeter wrench, exhaust hanger tool, 6-millimeter Allen wrench, and diagonal cutters. All right. Today we're gonna be installing an exhaust on our Corvette, so let's get started.
All right. So, we're gonna start off under the hatch. We just have to remove our trim panel here, that goes all the way across. We'll grab our trim panel removal tool, [inaudible 00:06:40] carefully get underneath our one edge here, and behind. It's just gonna pull out, all the way across. Just gonna work it along. All right. And we can just set that in here, out of the way.
So, now that we have our trim piece out of the way, you'll see 10 T15 screws going all the way across. Grab a ratchet and socket, and take those out. And if you want, you can just set them in the back here. All right. Now we just need to take our rear access cover off. So, there is a screw knob over here on either side. Just simply spin that off. And then you can start at one edge of the trim, just pull back, a couple tabs at the bottom. If you need to, just reach in, to release them. All right. We could just leave this trim like this. It's not in the way. What we need to access is this
latch cover right here. We just need to disconnect that, so we can pull our cable through. So we're just gonna grab our trim panel tool, and just pop up on these two tabs here, to open the cover. And we're just gonna lift up on this edge here, release it out of there. Now, the block here, it's nice and simple. Just gonna flip it up, slide the cable out of the slot, just like that. Next, we're gonna get our bezels off from around our tail lights. Now, the trim here has to come
off before we can get our bumper off and get our tail lights off. We're gonna grab our trim removal tool. Just be careful. If you want, you can use a little bit of painter's tape, and lay that in between the tail light and the body, if you don't wanna scratch it. You shouldn't with this. But you're just gonna be very careful. Just get under this corner. Pry
that out. Once you have that pried out, you should be able to pull along the tail light, so you have to go along the body, and just work your way across. And you can set this aside. So, the reason we have to take this trim off is for this bolt inside here. You'll see one T15 screw. We're gonna grab our ratchet, extension, and T15 socket, and take that
out. Be careful not to drop it in the bumper. And once you have this out, you can go ahead, do the same thing with the other tail light, with the trim and the screw. So, now we're gonna be in our wheel liner. You'll see this plastic trim here. Same thing. Grab our trim removal tool, pop that off, and pull that back. Now, that is held down by the bottom, with another bolt, but we can get in here with our ratchet and T15 socket, and take these two screws out here, and here. You can go ahead, do the same thing on the other side.
All right. Now we're gonna come in through the exhaust. You'll see two 10-millimeter bolts on the inside here. So we'll grab our ratchet and 10-millimeter socket, and take those off. Now, just be careful. If this exhaust is hot, you will burn yourself, so I recommend letting it cool down. Now we're gonna come underneath the car. You will see six 7-millimeter bolts going across,
on either side. So we're gonna grab our ratchet and 7-millimeter socket, to take all those out. Remember, when you do take one of these out, this trim piece in the wheel liner will come out. All right. You just go ahead, do the same thing for the other side. All right. Now we're getting ready to pull our bumper off. Now, it would be easier with two people. You can do this by yourself. You just gotta be careful. We're just gonna grab here,
and our wheel arch. So, we're just gonna pull straight back on either side of the bumper, to release it. All right. And just let that rest up on the top there. Go ahead and release it on the other side. All right. Now that we have our bumper pulled back slightly, you'll see our cable here that we disconnected inside the trunk. We're just gonna pull that through, like so. And then we also have our main harness connector right here. So, we're gonna pull back our red locking tab, and then disconnect that. And then we should be able to pull our bumper completely off now.
All right. As I was pulling our bumper off, I realized we had one more electrical connector, so I'm gonna disconnect that right here. There is a red locking tab. Disconnect that, and now we can pull it completely off. All right. And just lift this off, just like that. Now that we have our rear bumper off, we can get our mufflers out. Now, there are two 13-millimeter
bolts holding the mufflers together, so we're gonna start with those. Grab our ratchet and socket, and take those out. All right. Now we're gonna come back here to our tips. So, our car is equipped with NPP, so we have valves on our tips. We're just gonna disconnect them. There is a white locking tab on the connector. Gonna push down, and pull off. You see the white tab right there. Just tuck that harness out of the way, then we're gonna get this hanger down. Grab
our ratchet, extension, and 13-millimeter socket, and take those two bolts out. All right. Now, in front of our muffler, you will see another valve. That is our AFM valve. Now, the connector is the same as the NPP. We're just gonna reach in, with the muffler hanging down. Can access that,
and disconnect that, just like so. Now we're gonna come in front of our axle, and we have our clamp. So we're gonna grab our impact and 15-millimeter socket, and loosen this clamp up. All right. Now we're just gonna start at our muffler, and just give it a good twist and wiggle, and it should pop out of our mid-pipe. Now we can just pull that out, over our axle. All right. Now you can go ahead, do the same thing with the driver side muffler. The only difference on this is, since we have an automatic Corvette, the shift linkage is in the way. You just need to
put your shifter into neutral, so that you can have enough clearance to get the muffler out. All right. Now, for our stock exhaust, we have to take a couple things of. So, we can take our factory hanger off. And then we have to take our AFM valves off the FPP. Just stay on there. We are deleting those. We're gonna grab a ratcheting 8-millimeter wrench, and take these three bolts off. All right. And just take your valve off. Make sure you retain your hardware. You will
be reusing that. And for our exhaust hanger, we're gonna grab our hanger tool, and just pop this off. Now you can go ahead, do the same thing for the other muffler. All right. Now, for our factory valve, we do need to put on a simulator, since they are getting deleted. How we do that, we're gonna take this Torx bolt out of here. We're gonna grab our ratchet, our T25 Torx bit. Now, a little spin while taking it off, but once it hits its stop, it'll break free. Then we're going to just flip it, and reinstall our Torx bolt.
Doesn't need to be crazy tight, so don't over tighten it. Now we're gonna put our bracket over. And this is where we are going to reuse our factory hardware to secure to our bracket. Grab our 8-millimeter wrench and tighten them down. All right. Go ahead, do the same thing with the other motor. All right. Now we're gonna mount our motors with our simulators. And these get plugged in, like so. Make sure you secure the white locking tab down. And now, you can secure these however
you want. You just wanna secure them up out of the way of anything that might be hot or moving, especially out of the way of the exhaust. And you wanna make sure, because this will be moving here, that's not gonna be rubbing against anything. We're just gonna secure ours to this harness right here. That should keep it out of the way enough. But like I said, you could do it however you want. Grab a couple of the supplied zip ties. Just gonna leave it a little loose, just in case I need to move it over to make clearance for the exhaust. But you can go ahead, do the same thing for the other motor.
All right. Now that we got our motor secured up out of the way, we have some supplied heat tape. Now, we already have some heat shield on our lines, but we're just gonna double up. Make sure we keep all this heat out of here. Kinda tuck that down, and around. You can grab a couple of
the supplied zip ties. Just feed that around, and secure that down. And once you have that secured up out of the way, you can just take a pair of diagonal cutters, and just go across all of your zip ties, and just cut off the excess. All right. Now we're gonna get our over-the-axle pipes in. You just wanna make sure that you have the right ones. 86 will be for the passenger side, and 85 will be for the driver. So we're just gonna feed that up over our axle, and then down, and slide into our mid-pipe. All right. You can go ahead, do the same thing with the driver side pipe. All right. So, just a side note, because we did get the driver side in off-camera. Now,
since this pipe is a little bit larger than the factory one, it was a little bit harder to get in, especially because it isn't automatic, and the shift linkage is right there. So, what we had to do is take our impact and 13-millimeter socket, loosen up this hanger here, and our skid plate. That just allowed us to get enough flex to pull down, and get that pipe into place. So, once you get done that, you just go ahead, tighten these all back up, with the hanger, and we can continue going on with our exhaust. All right. Now we're gonna get our muffler sections put on. Just make sure you have the
right ones. 88 will be your passenger side. 87 will be your driver side. As you can see, we already have our clamp over here. Just gonna slide that over our axle pipe. Get that set into place. Slide our hanger over. And while we're here, just to keep everything held up in place, we'll just thread our two bolts in. Just like that. Get everything held up, and then go ahead, do the same thing with the muffler on the driver side. Now we're gonna grab our impact and 13-millimeter socket, and tighten down our two hanger bolts. And
then, while we're here, for our rear valves for the harness, you can just tuck that out of the way. Since they are deleted, we're just gonna tuck ours here. Can throw a zip tie on it if you want. Once you have that done, just go ahead, do the same thing for the other side. All right. Now we're gonna get our middle bracket installed. It's gonna go like that, in the forward side of our brackets. Gonna slide our Allen bolts through, and put our nuts on the backside. Just gonna get all of this loosely installed first. Now that this is all loosely installed, we'll go back and tighten all of our clamps, starting in the front, working our way backwards.
All right. So, we have our two factory clamps here. We're gonna grab our impact and 15-millimeter socket, and tighten these two down. Next, we need to tighten our two clamps at our mufflers on either side. We're gonna start on our passenger side here. Now, you see, it is very tight with our muffler in place, but orient the clamp correctly, you can get a ratchet on it, and a 15-millimeter socket to tighten it down. Go ahead, do the same thing for the other muffler.
Now we're gonna tighten our brace in the middle. So, I have our 6-millimeter ball Allen socket, just to help get that inner on that angle, and the 13-millimeter wrench to tighten the back. Now, this also does help keep everything level. Raise that up a little bit, and tighten this down. Once you have all this tight, you just wanna go back and make sure all the exits for the tips are level, so that your tips will be even. You may need to go back and loosen up some clamps and adjust some pipes and brackets. It's no big deal. But now we can put our tips on.
Now we can put our tips on. So, you see our hardware. We have our bolt with our nut. Just slide that over. And we're just gonna pull it off just a little bit, and make sure it's level, and grab our impact and 11-millimeter socket, and tighten that down. You can go ahead, do the same thing with the other three tips. All right. Now we're gonna get our bumper back in place. So, we can reinstall our two connectors,
and then our cable will go through the back. So, we're just gonna plug in our two connectors. We have our smaller one here. Make sure you secure the red locking tab. And the same thing with our main harness. And then we just have to feed our cable back through, and secure in there. Just pull it all the way through, and we can get our bumper on the rest of the way.
All right. Just line up the top, push it on, and then just get it lined up in the corners. Then we can start re-securing our hardware. So, now we're gonna reinstall our T15 screw to the back, in between our tail light. Grab our ratchet, extension, and T15 socket, and put that in. Next, reinstall your tail light trim. Just line all the tabs up, and snap into
place. Once you have this done, you go ahead, do the same thing with the other tail light. Now we're gonna come back underneath, and re-secure all of our 7-millimeter bolts on either side. And then grab our ratchet and socket, and tighten those down. All right. And then on our outside hole,
we're gonna put our trim back in our wheel well, and line that bolt up on the bottom, and tighten that down. Go ahead, do the same thing on the other side of the car. Then we just have our two 10-millimeter bolts behind our tips. Just grab our ratchet, extension, and 10-millimeter socket, and tighten those two down. So, now we're gonna go in our wheel well, grab our ratchet and T15 socket, and screw in our two screws here. Just line up all the tabs on your trim, snap that back in place. Go ahead, do the same thing on the other side. Now I'm gonna re-secure our cable. Now, the ball ends will go into this larger
slot here. [inaudible 00:22:26] my hand might be blocking most of it. We'll try, get that secured in there. Lock the cable in the end here. Make sure that sits flat in there, and then close the lid. Now we can get our trim cover back into place. Just gonna get all of our tabs lined up. Then you'll need to just raise the seal all the way across, so it fits properly.
Then we have our two screw tabs on either side. All right. Screw this one in on the other side, and we can get our hardware back in going all the way across. All right. We'll grab our ratchet and T15 socket, and re-secure all of our screws, going all the way across. And lastly, just have to put our trim piece back in place. Just line up all the tabs, and secure it in. And that wraps up our install of our AWE Touring Edition Axle-Back Exhaust, with Diamond Black Tips, for our 2014 to 2019 Corvette C7. And remember, for everything Corvette, keep it right here at americanmuscle.com.
2025-03-30 12:23
